Olaf Ludwig: Germany will no longer be a cycling nation

Three-time Tour de France stage winner Olaf Ludwig misses a German cyclist at the top of the world rankings and believes his sport is in a difficult position in Germany.

Olaf Ludwig on German cyclists

"We have some good guys like Lennard Kämna, Nils Politt and Emanuel Buchmann, who can occasionally ride in the front. They are super racers. But I don't think it's enough to be consistently at the front," said the 1988 Olympic champion in an interview during the Charity Bike Cup in Marbach.

Ludwig's assessment of the enthusiasm for cycling in Germany is correspondingly sober. "I don't think we're going to turn Germany into a cycling nation," says the 63-year-old: "My impression is that, with the exception of football, Germans are only interested in sports when Germans win. And in terms of cycling, even then only when it's about the Tour de France."

"No longer my cycling sport"

Ludwig once rode for Team Telekom in the Tour de France, then moved into the sporting management of the racing team and was later also team manager for Jan Ullrich, the only German winner of the Tour. Following the Fuentes scandal involving Ullrich and other professional cyclists, Ludwig was also forced to resign. Today, he follows the sport from a "certain distance", as he says: "This is no longer my cycling. But please don't misunderstand: I don't mean that in a judgemental way."

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Ludwig is referring to the professionalisation and scientification of cycling. But even in races such as the Tour, "it has to go higher and higher, become even more brutal", says the former peace ride winner: "Four mountains? Oh no, let's do five instead. Spectacle, spectacle, spectacle. Is that really necessary?" A Tour de France is now "modern gladiatorialism".

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